RamView: Week 16 – Part 6

Secondary: The Rams had little answer for the Arizona passing game. It was either soft zone that left Anquan Boldin (8-116) wide open for one huge gain after another, or let Warner (24-38-313) throw at Danny Gorrer like he was the last kid left on the other dodgeball team. Steve Breaston burned Gorrer for 45 to set up the first Arizona TD, a crossing route to Larry Fitzgerald (5-48) where Craig Dahl got caught in traffic and couldn’t pursue. Boldin slashed the Ram zone for 23 and 22 the next possession before Early Freaking Doucet beat Gorrer for an 18-yard TD on a skinny post. Gorrer never had him covered for a second. Justin King’s goal line tackle of Boldin right before halftime saved the Rams from going down 21-0 and was briefly a turning point for the Rams. They forced a Warner fumble and scored to cut the lead to 17-7. Then Gorrer read Warner’s attempt to hit Breaston in the right flat, jumped the route, had nothing but 40 yards of space between him and a huge defensive play, a TD, a new ball game… and he dropped the ball. KHAAAAAAN! Freaking Doucet burned them for 25 on a smoke route to set up another TD, and it was pretty academic from there. The secondary looked good in run support. King still looks good covering the underneath stuff. Ron Bartell quietly had a very effective game covering Fitzgerald. But that only illustrates how poorly the rest of the Ram secondary matches up with a Cardinal passing game they’re going to have to figure out how to cover one of these days.